Remembrance: Paddle Out for Tommy Shay, Daytona Beach

Family members and friends paddle out and scatter ashes for Tommy Shay at Hartford Avenue approach in Daytona Beach. April 4, 2026. Photo by Robert Hougham.

Reminder: Paddle Out for my brother Tommy Shay set for April 4

A reminder for my brother Tommy Shay's Paddle Out this Saturday, April 4:

Join us at the Hartford Approach in Daytona Beach at 1:00 PM as we come together to celebrate Tommy’s life.

Bring your board, share some stories, and help us send him off the way he would’ve loved — surrounded by friends, family, and the ocean.

If you can, wear Tommy’s favorite color red in his honor.

Open house to follow at the Martinez home.

We’d love to see everyone down by the sea.

Way back when: My son Kevin with Uncle Tommy
on Daytona Beach.

Ormond Beach No Kings Day Rally brings out the crowds and the creativity

Great crowd of concerned citizens at this morning's No Kings Day Rally at the Grenada Bridge in Ormond Beach, Florida. Many, like me, veterans of previous protests, others just concerned veterans. I parked my scooter next to Vietnam combat vet in a walker who doesn't support whatever this war is we are raging in Iran and vicinity. He grew up in Ormond and knew some of my b-ball teammates from Father Lopez High School (Go Green Wave!). Met a woman my age who, late at night, assembled her big sign held up by a mop handle. She moved recently from Long Island. "Left my blue state to come here." People with their dogs and kids and grandkids. They felt the need to be here on this sunny Saturday. I felt privileged to be in their company. A few photos below by Kevin Shay.

 

That's me with the cool compression socks. The man
behind me, a Navy vet (didn't get his name), lent me his wife's sign.

Some Stetson Law School (and UF) alumni want nothing to do with lawless AG Pam Bondi

Spectrum News in Tampa featured this header the other day:

Stetson Law School Alumni say no to school donations after Bondi congressional hearing fallout.

The move comes after a congressional hearing where [Pam] Bondi came under fire about the handling of the Epstein files. Some 500 Stetson Law School alumni said they’re disappointed in her conduct during that hearing.

Yes, Attorney General of the United States of America Bondi supposedly learned about attorney generaling in the general vicinity of Tampa/St. Pete.

Bondi is a graduate to Stetson Law School in Gulfport and University of Florida in Gainesville. No news yet whether UF alumni don't want their donations going to the school that spawned Bondi. I did write to UF in February saying I wouldn't donate to the school as long as long as Gov. Ron DeSantis keeps screwing around with our school. 

Will any of this make any difference? Well, 500 SLS alumni signed the pledge that went to Stetson. They are upset that the outlaw Attorney General could hang out a Stetson shingle. I don't blame them. I am angry that Bondi attended UF where she supposedly learned something about ethics. You can laugh if you want. I don't think Ethics 101 is required but maybe it's a graduate  course, maybe even one you might find at an accredited law school.

Our governor went to Harvard which is no excuse. He's MAGA through and through. A political opportunist in a crimson and black robe. Or is it a white robe and a hood? 

Welcome to Moses Lake! We lived here once upon a time

Postcard, probably early 1960s, of downtown Moses Lake, Wash.
Elmer's, my father's favorite Chinese/American restaurant, is shown on the left. 

I was going through some of my parents' old postcards that were sent to me by my sister Molly. She was making a clean sweep of her house in Tallahassee for a move to Decatur, Ga. She asked if I wanted these. Heck yes, I said. You never know what you might be missing when a family member sends you old family stuff. There be treasures within.

Let me explain. Two days ago, Chris and I were having lunch in Ormond Beach with my sister Eileen and her husband Brian from Winter Park, the Florida one not the Colorado one. They are planning a trip to Washington State to visit an old friend of Brian's, a rancher outside Moses Lake. I attended half of fourth grade and all of fifth grade at an elementary school I can't remember the name of and we lived on a street whose name I can't remember. Eileen was a toddler so her memories are limited. Mine are sharp, surprisingly so, considering I can't remember the school or street. I do remember my brother and I played little league baseball on the Moses Lake Lakers and I pitched the longest inning in small-time baseball history the summer of 1962. I was the team's last resort, a frustrated righty first baseman normally relegated to the outfield. That evening, we ran out of pitchers so they drafted me and regretted it. My brother Dan was very supportive. 

I also remember one of the books I read in the fourth grade: When Worlds Collide and After Worlds Collide, by Edwin Balmer and Phillip Wylie. I like my sci-fi. It was a warm-up for all the Tom Swift books. I read those in Wichita and a sci-fi collection my father got from Book Of The Month Club. 

Eileen and Brian wanted some details about our time in Moses Lake. I told them about the baseball and the books and our neighbors, the Hattori family, and how Dan and I walked downtown to the movie theater to watch westerns for a pittance. We saw Dan Blocker, Hoss from Bonanza, in the Moses Lake Roundup parade. I remembered rescuing Eileen from drowning at one of the local lakes, Soap Lake or the Potholes Reservoir. We visited the Grand Coulee Dam where my brother Pat was in a photo showing him leaning over the railing and looking down at the massive dam wall, One of my parents took the photo, and then probably yelled at Pat to get off the damn railing. Kids! 

I remember some things and not others. Eileen and Brian seemed impressed with my memory banks, for the most part, but disappointed I didn't remember the street we lived on for 18 months. In those days, your street address was usually drilled into you in case we got lost walking downtown or maybe we had to call the fire department some night. 

My dad's favorite restaurant was Elmer's Chinese-American. I think Elmer was Chinese-American -- that's what Dad told us. We had Japanese-American neighbors and their presence is common on the West Coast, even the dry dusty places like Moses Lake. World War Two was still fresh in the minds of vets like my dad and probably most of the guys he worked with making a home for nuclear missiles in Russki-proof launch silos. 

Moses Lake now has an arts center where an artist friend of mine in Spokane recently had a show. Population here is 27,000 but 104,000 in the county. Not unusual in the West to have people spread out all over the county. I found that out when I worked in Wyoming and Colorado. 

I wish Eileen and Brian Godspeed and hope they find out the dad-blasted name of the street we lived on for only a short while. B-52s used to fly over our house. Maybe that's a clue.

Country Joe: Forget the F. Gimme a N-U-R-S-E!

Thank the nurse that’s nursing you

For saving your life.

For saving your life.

For saving your life.

That’s the end of “Thank the Nurse,” a song by Country Joe McDonald.

Yes, that Country Joe. “Give me an F.” That’s him. He was a hit at the original Woodstock, which, apparently, millions attended, and of the film that followed, which millions saw. Joe supported nurses but especially those who served in war zones, especially Vietnam. He was considered an expert on Florence Nightingale whom he also sang about.

He died on March 7 at his home in Berkeley, Calif. He was 84.

He was reaching retirement age when he toured Wyoming in June 2002 with poet and Musician M.L. Liebler of Detroit. They met in 1997 when M.L. was teaching poetry to Vietnam vets through the Detroit Y Writer’s Voice Project. The two were touring the country promoting their CD "Crossing Borders" that combines music and poetry. They performed in a Cheyenne park and dropped in on the “Smokin’ Poets” reading at Zen’s Bistro in Cheyenne.

"This place has a nice vibe to it,” Joe told a reporter from the Cheyenne paper. “The people who come here are intelligent, sophisticated and not yuppie."

At a later reception, Joe was OK with revisiting Woodstock but really lit up when talking about nurses. He knew a lot and I told him about my grandmother, an army nurse in France during World War 1. At that time, I was only thinking about writing about her experiences. And now I have done it.

Listen to “Thank the Nurse” on Spotify or over at YouTube. I’d provide links but links don’t last. But Joe’s F-I-S-H Cheer lives on. So does this:

When the orderly is sleeping

and the physician can’t be found

no need for apprehension

the nurse is making rounds.

Thank the nurse that’s nursing you

The one that nursed you through

Poem of the world war, this one

This poem grabbed my attention because it captures the moment, as good poetry does.
It was posted on Facebook by friend and one-time writing professor
John Calderazzo in Colorado. Thanks, John.